'I miss him terribly': Matthew Perry's mother marks his 57th birthday, recalls son's wish to help others fight addiction

Suzanne Morrison, mother of the late actor Matthew Perry, honored her son's memory on August 19, the day he would have turned 57. The tribute was shared through the Matthew Perry House, a nonprofit organization, via Instagram, accompanied by a nostalgic childhood photo showing Morrison feeding a young Matthew. “August 19th. It’s his birthday. Matthew was born 57 years ago today, a day that I feel as keenly as if [it] all happened this very morning,” she wrote. “Along with all the days he struggled, and the days he hid his addiction from the world, and even from me," she wrote.

“Sweet, loving, funny, cantankerous, Matthew, who wanted - so much - to be well,” she continued. “I miss him terribly. All the time. Every day.”

“And I hear him saying over and over in those last days of his life, ‘I just want to help people like me, stuck in the disease of addiction,’” she continued. “He can’t anymore. But we can. And with your help, we will.”

In her message, Morrison wrote on the weight the anniversary still carries for her, describing the pain as fresh as though his birth had happened only hours earlier. She acknowledged not just her son's difficult moments but also how skillfully he concealed his struggles with substance dependency, sometimes even from her.

She described her son with a mix of tenderness and humour, calling him stubborn and funny, and emphasised how badly he longed for recovery. Her grief, she wrote, hasn't faded with time, it remains a constant presence in her daily life.

Morrison also recalled something Perry repeated frequently near the end of his life: his desire to support others battling the same addiction that ultimately took his life. She framed the nonprofit's ongoing work as a way of continuing that mission on his behalf, since he no longer can.

Perry died unexpectedly on October 28, 2023, at age 54. Investigators determined the cause to be an accidental overdose involving ketamine. Following his death, his family issued a statement to PEOPLE expressing their devastation over losing him, noting the happiness he had brought to others through both his acting career and personal relationships.

More recently, in the lead-up to the May 2026 sentencing of Kenneth Iwamasa, Perry's former personal assistant, who admitted guilt to a charge of conspiring to distribute ketamine tied to the actor's death, Morrison submitted a victim impact statement to the court, portions of which PEOPLE obtained.

In it, she described Perry as central to her existence, referring to him as her heart and soul. She wrote about the singular, inconsolable grief that comes with losing a child in such a violent, sudden way, stating that no amount of time would ever ease that particular kind of sorrow for her.